Kevin Spacey will be replaced by Christopher Plummer in Ridley Scott’s finished film about J Paul Getty.
Photograph: AP

Kevin Spacey is being removed from his next film release, with the director Ridley Scott reshooting all of the disgraced actor’s scenes using Christopher Plummer instead.

The unprecedented and hugely expensive move reinforces the widely held view that Spacey’s career is ruined, after multiple allegations of sexual harassment, beginning with the claim made by Anthony Rapp that the actor assaulted him when he was 14. Allegations against Spacey continue to mount including a new claim that he sexually assaulting an 18-year-old man in Boston, which police are investigating.

Scott is replacing the 58-year-old Spacey with the 87-year-old Plummer in the role of billionaire J Paul Getty in the completed thriller All the Money in the World. The film tells the true story of the kidnapping of Getty’s grandson in 1973, and the tycoon’s initial refusal to pay a ransom.

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Kevin Spacey assaulted my son, says former TV news anchor – video

The director expects to complete the reshoot quickly, therefore sticking to the 22 December release date and meeting the deadline for the awards season. Co-stars Mark Wahlberg and Michelle Williams are expected to be involved in the additional filming.

Publicity stills from the movie show that Spacey had been heavily aged using prosthetics. Using Plummer, reportedly Scott’s first choice, makes artistic sense given Getty was 80 at the time of the kidnapping.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Scott made the decision unilaterally and only told the film company Sony late on Wednesday. Sony had earlier put out a statement saying the release with Spacey would go ahead as hundreds of people had worked tirelessly on the film. “It would be a gross injustice to punish all of them for the wrongdoings of one supporting actor in the film,” the company said.

The film was originally going to have its world premiere at the American Film Institute Festival in Los Angeles on 16 November but it was hastily pulled once the Spacey scandal unfolded.

It remains to be seen what will happen to Spacey’s other unreleased film, Billionaire Boys Club, scheduled for release in 2018. It also stars Ansel Elgort, Taron Egerton and Jeremy Irvine, and tells the true story of a 1980s get-rich-quick scheme which supported the lavish lifestyles of its young members.

On Thursday, Heather Unruh, a former TV news anchor, said Spacey sexually assaulted her 18-year-old son in a bar and restaurant in Nantucket. Frequently in tears, she told a press conference that her straight son was “star struck” during a chance encounter with the actor in July 2016.

Spacey bought the young man “drink after drink” before sexually assaulting him by sticking his hand down his pants and grabbing his genitals, she claimed. Unruh said her son panicked and froze while Spacey insisted he accompany him to a private after-hours party.

She said her son managed to run away when Spacey went to the toilet, encouraged by a concerned woman who could see how distressed he was.

He did not report the assault, Unruh said, because he was embarrassed and fearful but her family was emboldened to come forward now that others had gone public with allegations of sexual misconduct against Spacey and other celebrities.

“To Kevin Spacey, I want to say this: Shame on you for what you did to my son,” Unruh said. “And shame on you for using your apology to Anthony Rapp to come out as a gay man. That was an appalling attempt to deflect attention away from what you really are – a sexual predator.”

Spacey is cutting an increasingly isolated figure. His former employer, the Old Vic in London, has expressed “deep dismay” at the allegations and opened a confidential complaints process.

CAA, Spacey’s LA talent agency for the past eight years, has said it no longer represents the actor. His press agent Staci Wolfe said on Friday shewas no longer working him, a day after she released a statement saying Spacey was “taking the time necessary to seek evaluation and treatment”. An International Emmy Founders award that was meant to be given to the actor this month has been withdrawn.

Kevin Spacey as J Paul Getty in a publicity picture for All The Money In The World. He is now being cut out of the film. Photograph: Aidan Monaghan/AP

Netflix announced it was dropping Spacey from the sixth and final season of its flagship show House of Cards, in which he starred as ruthless president Frank Underwood, and would not release the completed film Gore, which stars Spacey as the the writer Gore Vidal.

Spacey said he was “beyond horrified” to hear Rapp’s story, one he had no recollection of. He apologised and came out publicly, for the first time, as a gay man – a move which provoked a huge backlash from gay communities around the world.